Born in Croydon, South London (but then part of Surrey) and educated at the County School at Beckenham in Kent and the University of Oxford (New College), he served in the Royal Artillery and Intelligence during the Second World War and then pursued an academic career.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1956.
[1] Holloway gave the 1958 Chatterton Lecture on Poetry.
As Chairman of the Department of English at Cambridge (1970–71), he initiated an important broadening of the undergraduate literature curriculum, in particular to include American literature.
He was married twice, in 1946 to Audrey Gooding with whom he had a son and daughter, and in 1978 to Joan Black.